Schopenhauer and Buddhism
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Schopenhauer and Buddhism by Bhikkhu Ñāṇājīvako Buddhist Publication Society Kandy• Sri Lanka The Wheel Publication No. 144/146 ISBN 955–24–0047–3 First published 1970 Reprinted 1988 Copyright 1970 by Bhikkhu Nanājīvako BPS Online Edition © (2008) Digital Transcription Source: BPS Transcription Project For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted, reprinted and redistributed in any medium. However, any such republication and redistribution is to be made available to the public on a free and unrestricted basis, and translations and other derivative works are to be clearly marked as such. Contents Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860)..................................................................................................3 Works...............................................................................................................................................3 Source References and Acknowledgements................................................................................3 Buddhist Texts and their Abbreviations......................................................................................4 Numerical Classification of Schopenhauer’s texts.....................................................................4 Introduction........................................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1 Schopenhauer’s approach to Indian philosophy.........................................................9 Chapter 2 Schopenhauer on Buddhism.........................................................................................14 Chapter 3 The Four Noble Truths..................................................................................................24 From the first discourse of the Buddha (Dhammacakkappavattana-Sutta)..........................24 The Four Noble Truths............................................................................................................24 I. Suffering.................................................................................................................................25 II. Cause of Suffering................................................................................................................27 III Cessation of Suffering.........................................................................................................31 IV “The Road to Salvation“.....................................................................................................35 Chapter 4 Additional Analogies.....................................................................................................41 About The Author............................................................................................................................46 2 Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860) Works Year Title, translated in English Abbreviations 1813 On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason Über den Satz (Ph. D. thesis, quoted from 2nd German edition, 1847) vom Grunde 1819 The World as Will and Representation (first edition, volume one). 1844 2nd edition of the same work, in two volumes 1859 3rd, final edition of both volumes W.W.R. I, and II. 1851 Parerga and Paralipomena (two volumes) P.P. I. and II. 1836 On the Will in Nature (quoted from 2nd German edition, 1854) Über den Willen in der Natur 1841 The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics Grundprobleme (quoted from 2nd German edition, 1860) der Ethik Early Manuscripts from: Der Handschriftliche Nachlass, Erster F.M. Band: Frühe Manuskripte (1804–1818), Reprinted Frankfurt/M, 1966 Source References and Acknowledgements W.W.R., I and II are quoted from the English translation by Lt. Col. E. F. J. Payne, Dover Publications, New York, 1966. To the page number the paragraph (§) is added for volume I, and the chapter (Ch.) for volume II. Passages from Über den Satz vom Grunde and Über den Willen in der Natur are likewise quoted from Col. Payne’s translation of these works, to be issued shortly by The Open Court Publishing Company, La Salle, Illinois. The author and publishers of the present volume are obliged to the aforementioned two publishers for their kind permission to include here extracts from these works. All other translations have been supplied by Col. E. F. J. Payne from his unpublished manuscripts. Except for the Early Manuscripts, as stated above, references correspond to Paul Deussen’s German edition of Arthur Schopenhauers Sämtliche Werke, published by A. Piper, München 1912–1913. The first number in brackets after the abbreviated title, refers to Schopenhauer’s original edition, as indicated above; the second number to Deussen’s edition, from which it is quoted here. The text under 0.32 (Ch. II) from On The Basis Of Morality, pertaining to Grundprobleme der Ethik, is quoted from Col. Payne’s translation published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1965. Particular thanks are due to Lt. Col. E. F. J. Payne, not only for his kind consent to the use of his masterly translations, but also for his friendly help and advice as well as his valuable 3 suggestions for improving of the linguistic form of this volume written by one for whom English is not his mother tongue. Buddhist Texts and their Abbreviations MN Majjhima-nikāya DN Dīgha-nikāya SN Saṃyutta-nikāya AN Aṅguttara-nikāya Dhp Dhammapada Sn Suttanipāta Quotations have been adapted mainly from the editions of the Pali Text Society Translation Series (London). Editions of the Buddhist Publication Society (Kandy) have also been freely used. For the translations from Dhammapada the author has consulted various editions and versions. Translations from Suttanipāta facing Schopenhauer’s texts 5.15—5.18 (Ch. iv) are from E. M. Hare, Woven Cadences (P.T.S. ed.) Numerical Classification of Schopenhauer’s texts 0.1–0.36 Texts on Buddhism 1.1–1.5 On the First Noble Truth—Suffering 2.1–2.14 On the Second Noble Truth—Cause of Suffering 3.1–3.9 On the Third Noble Truth—Cessation of Suffering 4.1–4.21 On the Fourth Noble Truth—“The Road to Salvation “ 5. 1–5.18 Additional analogies 4 Introduction “For so long have vain and fruitless attempts at philosophy been made, because men looked for it on the path of science instead of on that of art. Therefore no art boasts of such egregious bungling as does the art of philosophy. Men tried to consider the Why instead of the What; they strove for the distant instead of seizing what is everywhere close at hand; they went outwards in all directions instead of entering into themselves where every riddle can be solved … The philosopher should never forget that he is cultivating an art and not a science.” 1 F.M. [1814] p. 154, §259 Faut-il mourir pour Danzig? (“Do we have to die for Danzig?”) exclaimed a French social philosopher in 1939 when the German occupation of this sensitive point on the north-eastern shores of Europe, held at that time by Poland, became the signal for a new world war. Arthur Schopenhauer, who since the late 19th century has been the most widely read German and European philosopher, was born in Danzig, in 1788. At that time Danzig was a free Hanseatic city, but in 1793 it was captured by the militarist German state of Prussia. Schopenhauer’s father, a rich merchant, considering freedom as the best safeguard of prosperity, decided to transfer his business to the still independent Hanseatic city of Hamburg. At the age of nine, Arthur was sent for two years to France, where he stayed at Le Havre with a family of a business friend of his father who wished to educate his son for an international business career. Arthur, however, since childhood had shown a preference for a study of the classics. To win him over to continue the family business, his father offered him, at the age of fifteen, a choice either of a regular school training in the humanities, or of a pleasure trip through Europe and England with his parents for a few years. Arthur could not resist such a temptation, but he never regretted it, for he considered that “seeing and having experience were just as necessary as reading and study.” The journey included a lengthy stay at Wimbledon for the purpose of learning English. Soon after, in 1805, his father, died in tragic circumstances and his mother, a writer of fiction and fond of an easy way of living, moved to Weimar, then the cultural centre of Germany. There, among other celebrities, Goethe became a friend of the Schopenhauer family. He was best able to discern a touch of genius in the boy’s character and the boy on his part remained a lifelong admirer of the poet’s penetrating approach to the serious problems of existence. A deep and ineradicable veneration for his father made him resentful of his mother. Anxious to regain the years lost for a regular secondary course in the humanities, he embarked on an intensive course of study and made good the loss in two years. At the age of twenty he was qualified to enter the university. For the first two years he studied medicine, and then took up definitely the study of philosophy, at the University of Berlin. In 1813, he presented to the University of Jena his dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, for which he was made a Doctor of Philosophy. Schopenhauer’s thesis is based on a critical revision of the theory of categories in Kant’s philosophy. Kant’s twelve categories (or “pure concept of the understanding”) are reduced to only one: causality. In his extensive Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, at the end of WWR I, Schopenhauer